Somewhere, Joe Bob Briggs is smiling.

Good review, but you really shouldn't refer to women over 18 as girls! Not only is it sexist, but it isn't good journalistic style.

That Stephanie Zacharek had problems with the Kill Bill movies and Pulp Fiction for being homages to low-rent movies, and yet praises Grindhouse for being more or less the same.

I'm still going to see it, but more for Tarantino than Rodriguez.

SeanKG writes: "...Stephanie Zacharek had problems with the Kill Bill movies and Pulp Fiction for being homages to low-rent movies, and yet praises Grindhouse for being more or less the same."

Did you even read her review? She wrote that she disliked "Pulp Fiction" for serving up "stylized violence with a smirk," not for its homages or reference.

You might want to look up "irony" in the dictionary, and while you're at it stop trying to oversimplify or mischaracterize other people's opinions just because they don't agree with your own.

It's not just the exploitation elements that have disappeared from filmmaking. I'm sure there are many filmmakers who would still love to grind out films like Terror Planet, but once they do, there are virtually NO outlets left to show them in. It's more than the closing of all the former grindhouses. In fact, I'm sure there are more screens than ever. For instance, there are now 21 screens in my small town of 50,000 people, but film makers literally have zero access to most of those screens. Even the independent screens (five of them) run by a friend of mine, you would be amazed how hard it is for him sometime to bring a film to town. The politics and placating of distributors is stunning. There are dozens of screens in town, but the distributors literally hold theater owners in a "DeathGrip." (Wouldn't that be great title?)

Another signifigant change is in film financing. The days when a young film maker could go out and con a group of bored dentists into coughing up a couple hundred grand were done away with long ago. It used to be a fun tax write-off for these people.

But ultimately it is true that the corportization of financing, distribution and film making has leached all the sleazy fun from movies. A great example might be another film in theater's right now, "The Hills Have Eyes 2" a sequel to a remake of a much superior original film. The original was gritty, gruesome, and horrible. Somehow, the remake was both more graphic and yet less horrifying. Frankly, the remake was boring and pointless.

I haven't seen the current film, but it seems to be even more clueless about what made the original the grotesque treat it was. The grindhouse films were formulaic, sure, but they were also, often, surprisingly personal films, as filmmakers working at lightning speed dumped grotesque bits of their own psyche and obsessions onto the screen.

Then I recommend Cannibal. German, shot in ten days...I've never been so disturbed by a movie before (and I've seen them all). It had me freaked out for days.

I'll probably see Grindhouse, but I think Tarrantino's bag of tricks may be about empty. It seems like he's repackaging pretty much the same thing over and over. We get it, he likes trashy old movies. I'd like to see him apply it to something new.

I was lucky enough to see this movie at a cast and crew screening, and it most certainly is a lot of fun.

I disagree a bit with Stephanie, though. To let you know where I come from with Tarantino, I loved Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, and have disliked about everything he's done since. Jackie Brown committed the cardinal sin of being boring, and the Kill Bill schlock was an uneven mess.

"Death Proof" is uneven as well. His dialog scenes are really lame and predictable banter. You overhear better stuff in most coffee shops these days. If you want to make the argument that the lame banter is part of his "homage," then perhaps you're right but then I start to wonder if anyone has noticed that all Tarantino has ever done is an "homage" or a "tribute?" I had real high hopes for him, and his love for film seems to be genuine, but only Kurt Russell and some good stunt work rescues "Death Proof." Even then, the tough chick amazon talk during said stunt scenes is pretty annoying. Count how many times you feel Tarantino is talking through his actresses--it gets annoying.

All that said--"Planet Terror" is a fantastic thrill ride and much more captures the spirit of what I think both were shooting for. "Planet Terror" and the previews, and any scene with Russell in "Death Proof" are worth the price of admission.

Friendly tip--when you see the second set of girls chatting while eating breakfast, its a good time for your bathroom break, since there is no intermission. You won't miss much.

"...I'm not a fan of 'Pulp Fiction.'"

It's like those people you meet at cocktail parties who have to tell anyone and everyone within a 50-foot radius that they don't own a TV.

Am I supposed to feel pity? To you I say, "Better you than me."

A movie critic not liking 'Pulp Fiction' is like a food critic not liking French cuisine.

As movies have gotten more sophisticated...

Have they? Which ones are you referring to, Ms. Zacharek? SAW III? HOSTEL? THE HILLS HAVE EYES 2?

Or perhaps you're thinking of such high-minded fare as ARE WE DONE YET? and BLADES OF GLORY.

I'm not sure there's ever been a period in the history of movies that's turned out more mindless claptrap than the one we're currently enduring. That sort of self-congratulatory view of the past -- "We've evolved so far beyond those dim bulbs of decades past. How quaint their entertainments were!" -- is revisionist at best.

Cinematic gold and dross -- and everything in between -- have always coexisted. The truly low-end pictures today go directly to video rather than to 42nd Street, but little else has changed -- certainly not the overall quality of motion pictures.